Security and authentication

ArcGIS supports secure access to and portal items. It ensures that only valid, authorized users and services can access protected information. To access secure ArcGIS resources, you need an that you can obtain by implementing an authentication workflow in your app. The type of authentication you use will depend on the security and access requirements of your app.

There are three types of authentication that you can use to get an access token:

  • API key authentication: grants a long-lived access token to authenticate requests to and secure portal items. For more information see the Introduction to API key authentication. To obtain an API Key access token, go to the Create an API key tutorial using your . Here you can configure the API key privileges to authorize access to different services and portal items.
    • API key access tokens created with an account, from ArcGIS Enterprise in version 11.4 onwards, provide access to secure in an ArcGIS Enterprise .
  • User authentication: grants a short-lived token, generated via OAuth, giving your application permission to access the and secure portal items authorized to an existing ArcGIS user's account.
  • App authentication: grants a short-lived access token via OAuth 2.0, authorizing your application to access and secure portal items.

To make authenticated requests to services, you need to set the token parameter to an .

For more information, see the Security and authentication guide.

Choose a type of authentication

The following considerations can help determine which type of authentication to implement:

  • Access to resources—Your app can access and portal items using , , or .

  • User experience—If you don't want to make users log in, your app can access using or . In this case, users will not need to have an in order to use your app.

  • Usage charges—If you want service usage to be charged to the user's account, your app must request that the user log in using . When using or , all access to services from your app will be charged to your ArcGIS account.

You might also need to consider the level of security required for your app, how your app will be distributed, and your available ArcGIS products and accounts.

ScenarioSolution
Your app requires access to only, you don't want to make users log in, and you are willing to pay for all charges incurred from usage of the app.API key authentication or App authentication
Your app requires access to only and you want usage charged to the user.User authentication
Your app needs to access content that requires an .User authentication
Your app needs to access private hosted data on your .API key authentication or App authentication
Your app allows users to view and edit private data hosted in or .User authentication
You plan to distribute your app through ArcGIS Marketplace.User authentication

API key authentication

An API Key can grant your public-facing application access to specific and portal items.

Use when you want to:

  • Quickly write applications that consume .
  • Provide access to services without requiring users to sign in with an .
Learn more about API key authentication

Use API key access tokens

An API key, can be used to authorize access to specific and portal items. Go to the Create an API key tutorial to obtain a new access token.

If you set the access token on the ArcGISRuntimeEnvironment, all requests made by your app will be authorized using this token. You will be able to view the app's usage telemetry on the respective , , or account.

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    ArcGISRuntimeEnvironment::setApiKey("YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN");

You can also set the access token on any class that implements ApiKeyResource. When you set an access token for a specific class, it will override any access token you may have set on ArcGISRuntimeEnvironment, enabling more granular usage telemetry and management for resources used by your app.

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    // Create a new ArcGIS basemap and apply an access token.
    Basemap* basemap = new Basemap(BasemapStyle::ArcGISTopographic, this);
    basemap->setApiKey("YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN");

    // Create a new map with the basemap.
    m_map->setBasemap(basemap);

Classes that implement ApiKeyResource include:

User authentication

User authentication is a set of authentication workflows that allow users with an to sign into an application and access ArcGIS , , and resources. The typical authentication protocol used is OAuth2.0. When a user signs into an application with their ArcGIS account, an is generated that authorizes the application to access services and content on their behalf. The resources and functionality available depend on the user type, roles, and privileges of the user's ArcGIS account.

Services that your app accesses with user authentication will be billed to the authenticated user's and its associated . If your application will access your users' secure content in ArcGIS or if you plan to distribute your application through ArcGIS Marketplace, you must use .

Implement user authentication when you want to:

  • Ensure users are signed in and authenticated with their own .
  • Use your app user's to pay for their private data, , or service transactions.
  • Limit the length of time users can be signed in to your app with a temporary token.
  • Distribute your app through ArcGIS Marketplace.
Learn more about user authentication

App authentication

grants a short-lived access token, generated via OAuth 2.0, authorizing your application to access , such as basemap layers, search, and routing.

Use app authentication when you want to:

  • Access with a more secure process and a short-lived token.
  • Provide access to services without requiring users to have an ArcGIS account.
Learn more about app authentication

Authentication manager

This API contains an AuthenticationManager, available from the ArcGISRuntimeEnvironment, that manages all user authentication when your application connects to secured resources. It provides a central place to configure the authentication challenge handlers and credential stores.

The AuthenticationManager class allows you to manage authentication/security related tasks.

It emits the authenticationChallenge signal whenever an authentication or security issue is encountered anywhere in the API.

The following challenges can be raised by the AuthenticationManager:

  • AuthenticationChallengeType::UsernamePassword - Challenges needing username and/or password authentication.
  • AuthenticationChallengeType::OAuth - Challenges needing an OAuth authorization code.
  • AuthenticationChallengeType::ClientCertificate - Challenges needing a client certificate to be provided.
  • AuthenticationChallengeType::SslHandshake - Challenges needing a response to certain SslError errors, usually an untrusted host due to a self-signed certificate.

It also contains an instance of a CredentialCache which maintains a cache of credentials, in memory, that have been previously used to satisfy authentication challenges. This allows a credential to be reused where appropriate, and prevents unnecessary or duplicate challenges from being issued while accessing secure resources from the same security realm. Caching happens automatically if isCredentialCacheEnabled() is true.

The easiest way to handle authentication challenges in the UI is to use the AuthenticationView component available in the ArcGIS Maps SDK for Qt Toolkit GitHub repo.

The Access services with OAuth 2.0 tutorial provides a detailed, step-by-step, example of how to create a Qt Creator project to authenticate a user to access a secure ArcGIS service with OAuth 2.0.

There is also an example of using the AuthenticationView with the AuthenticationManager in the Token authentication sample.

What's Next?

For more information about Security and Authentication, see the Security and Authentication chapter.

Tutorials

Samples

Portal user info

Integrated Windows authentication

Token authentication

Create and save a map

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